{"id":13703,"date":"2019-06-15T23:40:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-15T13:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/?p=13703"},"modified":"2019-07-15T12:33:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T02:33:05","slug":"along-came-alongshan-virus-a-new-tick-borne-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/along-came-alongshan-virus-a-new-tick-borne-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Along came Alongshan virus, a new tick-borne disease"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published on June 11, 2019<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
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Author: Melvin Sanicas<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
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Tick-borne diseases, which afflict humans and other animals, are caused by infectious agents\u00a0(viruses, bacteria, protozoa)\u00a0transmitted by<\/a>\u00a0tick bites<\/a>. As of 2016, 16 tick-borne diseases of humans have been identified, including Lyme disease, tularemia,\u00a0babesiosis<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Rocky Mountain Spotted fever<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
A group of patients in Inner Mongolia likely represent the first identified human cases of a new tick-borne illness \u2014 the Alongshan virus (ALSV). A description of ALSV, along with associated cases, was recently published in the\u00a0New England Journal of Medicine<\/em><\/a>. ALSV\u00a0<\/em>belongs to the jingmenvirus group in the flavivirus family. The first member of the group was described in 2014 and named the\u00a0Jingmen tick virus<\/a>\u00a0(JMTV) because it was isolated from a tick in\u00a0Jingmen<\/a>, China.<\/p>\n
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In 2017, a 42-year-old woman (the index patient) presented to an Inner Mongolian hospital with a headache, fever, and history of tick bite. The woman showed signs of tick-borne encephalitis virus or TBEV but according to the study\u2019s authors, \u201cneither TBEV RNA nor antibodies against TBEV were detected.\u201d<\/p>\n

A total of 86 patients were eventually identified with similar symptoms. The patients were infected with an unknown segmented RNA virus, which the authors named ALSV. There were no deaths and all patients recovered with supportive care and the administration of antimicrobials and antivirals. However, 30 out of 86 (35%) patients experienced coma, which suggests ALSV can cause severe illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings suggest that ALSV may be the cause of a previously unknown febrile disease, and more studies should be conducted to determine the geographic distribution of this disease outside its current areas of identification,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>the authors concluded. They noted the disease has only been found in Inner Mongolia an autonomous region of northern China and carried by\u00a0Ixodes persulcatus<\/em>\u00a0ticks. Mosquitoes in the area, too, also purportedly carry the disease. It is not currently clear if patients are getting the illness exclusively from ticks or from mosquitoes.<\/p>\n

New technologies such as next-generation sequencing have greatly accelerated the pace of discovery of new viruses in a wide range of hosts. In a related\u00a0commentary<\/a>, experts from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston wrote,\u00a0\u201cThe nature of ALSV, a unique virus in the family\u00a0Flaviviridae\u00a0with a vector that has a wide distribution, should warn us of its potential.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

ALSV is only one of the emerging pathogens that has recently been identified in China, in addition to\u00a0Huaiyangshan banyangvirus<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(formerly\u00a0SFTS virus<\/em>) and\u00a0Anaplasma capra<\/em><\/a>. There will be more. The experts noted that a far more cost-effective way to understand the emergence of diseases and mitigate their outbreak is a proactive, real-time surveillance of human populations.<\/p>\n

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In summer months when tick season is at its height, it is recommended to check for ticks daily, especially under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist, and on the hairline and scalp and shower soon after being outdoors.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Melvin Sanicas<\/a><\/p>\n
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Physician | Scientist | TED Educator | Writer<\/h4>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more industry news please check out our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find us on Social Media –\u00a0Facebook, <\/a>Instagram<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> and Twitter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published on June 11, 2019 Author: Melvin Sanicas Tick-borne diseases, which afflict humans and other animals, are caused by infectious agents\u00a0(viruses, bacteria, protozoa)\u00a0transmitted by\u00a0tick bites. As of 2016, 16 tick-borne diseases of humans have been identified, including Lyme disease, tularemia,\u00a0babesiosis\u00a0and\u00a0Rocky Mountain Spotted fever. A group of patients in Inner Mongolia likely represent the first identified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6794,"featured_media":15244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2000],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13703"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15246,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13703\/revisions\/15246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}